


Know

by Jeni182



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Death, Funeral, Grieving, M/M, andrew talks to bee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 05:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18088214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeni182/pseuds/Jeni182
Summary: Betsy Dobson has died, and Andrew tells her some truths after the funeral.





	Know

**Author's Note:**

> Hello hi this is very sad, I'm sorry. But also happy? Because Andrew got to have Bee? Anyway. Hope you enjoy!?
> 
> Also, I imagine [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_eR0IVSOhY) song playing very softly in the background when I picture Andrew on the ground next to Bee. If anyone wants to listen.

Betsy Dobson died on a Tuesday morning. Andrew was still asleep when his phone rang. Neil answered, because Neil was always up early. Even though they’d both retired, he never missed a morning run. 

It was Wymack. Neil shook Andrew awake and handed him the phone with a look that immediately had him on alert. He was still not prepared. 

Bee had a heart attack. Her second one, but this one she did not recover from. She was too old now. Her body too frail. It took its toll and left her empty. The doctors said it was quick and it was painless. 

For who? Andrew wondered. 

Now he stood under an awning set up to keep the sun out. Neil by his side, a retinue of his past behind him. His old teammates were here, Wymack was here, his brother was here. Nicky couldn’t make the trip from Germany, but he was devastated to Andrew’s satisfaction. Because the world had lost something wonderful and pure and bright and the fact that there were people who did not know this.

Who did not know  _ her _ .

Made Andrew want to scream. But he didn’t. He stood next to Neil and let him rub soothing circles into his back. He listened to a person he did not know and Bee did not know say things about her he could not have possibly known. He watched as her casket was lowered into the ground. He stayed when everyone else but Neil walked away. Until finally his husband pulled him toward the car. Toward the wake. 

_ At least so you can get some food. You need to eat something. _

Andrew did not eat anything. 

They left early, Aaron in the backseat. He was staying with them for the funeral, but was flying back out to Chicago in the morning. He wasn’t close to Bee like Andrew was close to Bee. But Andrew was glad he came. He was glad everyone came. 

Andrew made a detour back the the cemetery. He felt pulled. He didn’t really know why. Neither Neil nor Aaron said a word about it as he pulled over to the side of the drive nearest her grave. It was already covered. A dirt mound with a fake green grass blanket over it. Like someone was trying to hide something they’d done. Like Andrew was trying to hide the pain behind a green grass blanket of cool indifference. Bee wouldn’t have wanted that. 

So he got out of his car, and Neil followed. 

“I want to go alone,” he said. 

“I know. Just...we’ll be right here okay? Take whatever time you need. Here,” Neil said, reaching into the car and pulling out a thermos from the cupholder. It was still warm and Andrew could smell hot chocolate wafting out of the lid. 

“Tell her I said thanks for everything.” And Neil put a hand on either side of Andrew’s face and kissed him once. Twice. Three times after searching his eyes. Andrew could feel the cool smoothness of Neil’s wedding band against his warm cheek. He nodded.

He walked over to Bee’s grave, hot chocolate in hand and sat down in the grass in his suit right next to her. He put the hot chocolate down between them and began to speak. 

“I don’t know if you know, Bee. But that moment was made possible by you. All of the moments with him. The moment I told him I loved him was because of you. The moment I proposed to him was because of you. The moment I finally kill him for his smart mouth will be because you’re not here to talk me out of it.”

Andrew drew his legs up and crossed them at the ankles. He was a grown man sitting in the grass next to a mound of dirt. And he felt like right here was exactly where he needed to be at this moment. He pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes to try and stop the burning behind them. 

“I don’t know if you know, Bee. But I’m alive today because of you. Because you took all the broken pieces and you helped me put them back in the right order. You helped me accept that some pieces were just missing, and that’s okay. I would not have made it. I would not have lived to see twenty-one if it wasn’t for you and for Neil.”

He didn’t try to stop the burning this time. He let the tears come. It was no use. He took a shuddering breath and put his hands over his face. He allowed himself one sob before he tried to get himself back together. He had to finish this. He had to tell her. 

“I don’t know if you know, Bee. But I’ve always said Cass Spear was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a mother. She was kind to me. She was the first one to care. But in the end I was not hers. In the end she ignored my hurt in order to keep her illusion of the perfect family. But you, Bee. You were my mother. You held me together and you celebrated my milestones. When I played a great game. When I got straight A’s. When I stopped drinking and smoking. When I ‘ _ let the love in _ ’ as you always like to say. You were my mother, Bee. I don’t know if you ever knew that.”

He heard someone coming and saw them plop down beside him in the grass. He thought it would be Neil, but it was Aaron. Andrew was about to ask him what he was doing when he opened his mouth to speak.

“I don’t know if you know, Bee. But you’re the reason I can sit next to my brother without one or both of us plotting a murder.”

Andrew let out a surprised, wet laugh. They were rare, but it was so true he couldn’t help himself. 

Aaron grinned at him. “Just wanted to let you know Josten is on the phone with Nicky and he’s losing it.”

“His name is Minyard now, you know.”

Aaron shrugged. “He’ll always be Josten to me.” The he stood and left Andrew alone again.

Andrew stayed sitting for a few more minutes. He had lost something so fundamental. It was like a little piece of him was missing now. Like there was a hole where Bee used to live inside of him. He didn’t know if it would always be this way or if this was just the grief. But in the end, he found it hard to be much of anything besides grateful. Bee was the person he needed in his life. She was the thing that saved him. And the fact that he got to have her? He couldn’t keep Cass, but he had kept Bee. He thought maybe the universe knew what it was doing after all. 

Andrew stood up and brushed the grass from his pants. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a crystal figurine of two foxes, one big and one small. He placed it atop Bee’s grave and stepped back.

“I don’t know if you know, Bee,” he whispered. “But I love you.”

 


End file.
